Leviathan’s Choice

The ground is gone. Cold closes around your legs, your chest, your throat.

You try to shout and swallow water instead. It burns. It weighs.

Your companion grabs your arm. Leather. Panic. You kick for something

solid. There is nothing. Your chest tightens. Your lungs stop asking.

His hand slips. Not torn away. Gone. The water fills the space

like he was never there. This isn’t something under the water. This is the water.

This time, it isn’t a game. This is Leviathan. Long before maps, people believed

the sea decided. Ships didn’t sink. They vanished. They didn’t fight it.